Then, all in a half-hour, one afternoon, both he and Nancy seemed to cross a chasm of growth so wide that one thrilled to look back to the farther side where all objects showed little and all interests were juvenile.  And this phenomenon, signalised by the passing of the Gratcher, came in this wise.  As they rested from play—­this being a time when the Gratcher was most likely to be seen approaching by him of the Gratcher-eye, the usual alarm was given, followed by the usual unbreathing silence.  The little boy fixedly bent his magic eye around the corner of the house, the little girl scrambling to him over the grass to clutch one of his arms, to listen fearfully for the setting of the monster’s crutches at the end of each stride, to feel if the earth trembled, as it often distinctly did, under his awful tread.

Wider grew the eyes of both at each “Now he’s nearer still!” of the little boy, until at last the girl must hide her head lest she see that awful face leering past the corner.  For, once the Gratcher’s eye met yours fairly, he caught you in an instant and worked his will.  This was to pick you up and look at you on all sides at once with the eyes in his finger-ends, which tickled you so that you lost your mind.

But now, at the shrillest and tensest report of progress from the gifted watcher, all in a wondrous second of realisation, they turned to look into each other’s eyes—­and their ecstasy of terror was gone in the quick little self-conscious laughs they gave.  It was all at once as if two grown-ups had in a flash divined that they had been playing at a childish game under some spell.  The moment was not without embarrassment, because of their having caught themselves in the very act and frenzy of showing terror of this clumsy fiction.  Foolishly they averted their glances, after that first little laugh of sudden realisation; but again their eyes met, and this time they laughed loud and long with a joy that took away not only all fears of the Gratcher forever, but their first embarrassment of themselves.  Then, with no word of the matter whatsoever, each knowing that the other understood, they began to talk of life again, feeling older and wiser, which truly they were.

For, though many in time wax brave to beard their Gratcher even in his lair, only the very wise learn this—­that the best way to be rid of him is to laugh him away—­that no Gratcher ever fashioned by the ingenuity of terror-loving humans can keep his evil power over one to whom he has become funny.

The passing of the Gratcher had left no pedestal crying for another idol.  In its stead, for his own chastening and with all reverence, the little boy erected the spirit of that God which the Bible tells of, who is all-wise and loving, yet no sentimentalist, as witness his sudden devastations among the first-born of all things, from white rabbits to men.

But an idol next went down that not only left a wretched vacancy in the boy’s pantheon, but fell against his heart and made an ugly wound.  It was as if he had become suddenly clear-seeing on that day when the Gratcher shrivelled in the blast of his laugh.